Print

Mail

wiki links

Demand for data puts engineers in spotlight

By Steve Lohr
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, NEW YORK
Sunday, Jun 22, 2008, Page 12

Paul Marcoux, vice president for green engineering at Cisco Systems, stands in the data center at Cisco’s Richardson, Texas, campus on June 5. PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE

In Silicon Valley, the stars have long been charismatic marketing visionaries and cool-nerd software wizards. By contrast, mechanical engineers who design and run computer data centers were traditionally regarded as little more than blue-collar workers in the high-tech world.

For years, they toiled in relative obscurity in the engine rooms of the digital economy, amid the racks of servers and storage devices that power everything from online videos to corporate e-mail systems. Their mission was to keep the computing power plants humming, while scant thought was given to their rising costs and energy consumption.

Today, data center experts are no longer taken for granted. The torrid growth in data centers to keep pace with the demands of Internet-era computing, their immense need for electricity and their inefficient use of that energy pose environmental, energy and economic challenges, experts say. That means people with the skills to design, build and run a data center that does not endanger the power grid are suddenly in demand. Their status is growing, as are their salaries — climbing more than 20 percent in the last two years into six figures for experienced engineers.

“The data center energy problem is growing fast, and it has an economic importance that far outweighs the electricity use,” said Jonathan Koomey, a consulting professor of environmental engineering at Stanford University. “So that explains why these data center people, who haven’t gotten a lot of glory in their careers, are in the spotlight now.”

“We were seen as sheet metal jockeys,” said Chandrakant Patel, a mechanical engineer at Hewlett-Packard Labs (HP) who has worked in Silicon Valley for 25 years. “But now we have a chance to change the world for the better, using engineering and basic science.”

There is no let-up in the demand for data center computing. Digital Realty Trust, a data center landlord with more than 70 facilities, says that customer demand for new space is running at 50 percent ahead of its capacity to build and equip data centers for the next two years. “We’re building the railroads of the future, and we can’t keep up,” said Chris Crosby, a senior vice president at Digital Realty.

For every new center, new data center administrators need to be hired.

“It takes us eight months to find a guy to run a data center,” Crosby said.

Indeed, some data managers with only a degree from a two-year college can command a US$100,000 salary. Trade and professional conferences for data center experts, unheard-of years ago, are now commonplace. Five-figure signing bonuses, retention bonuses and generous stock grants have become ingredients in the compensation packages of data center experts today.

Paul Marcoux knows the feeling of being wanted. Cisco Systems, giant Silicon Valley maker of equipment used in data centers, recently conducted a nationwide search for a vice president for “green engineering.” It needed someone who could manage the traditional information technology functions as well as increasingly important mechanical and electrical systems.

In November, Cisco found Marcoux, an electrical engineer with an MBA working at American Power Conversion, a manufacturer of power supplies and air conditioners for data centers. Marcoux, 57, has worked on the design and construction of about 100 data centers in his 30-year career.

“To really make progress, we have to bridge the analog and the digital worlds,” Marcoux said.

At Cisco, Marcoux is improving the company’s data centers and its products so that its computers increasingly can communicate with the coolers and power generators.

“Our products need to talk to the power supplies and air conditioners instead of being standalone boxes,” he said.

Many companies — and the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — are working to make data centers operate more like seamless machines, using sensors and software, for example, so the computers can direct air conditioners and fans where and what level of cooling is needed.

Patel is overseeing HP’s programs in energy-efficient data centers and technology. The research includes advanced projects like trying to replace copper wiring in server computers with laser beams. But like other experts in the field, Patel says that data centers can be made 30 percent to 50 percent more efficient by applying current technology.

The pace of the data center build-up is the result of the surging use of server computers, which in the US rose to 11.8 million last year, from 2.6 million a decade earlier, market researcher IDC said.Worldwide, the 10-year pattern is similar, with the server population increasing more than fourfold to 30.3 million as of last year.

“For years and years, the attitude was just buy it, install it and don’t worry about it,” said Vernon Turner, an analyst for IDC. “That led to all sorts of inefficiencies. Now, we’re paying for that behavior.
This story has been viewed 1049 times.